Our beautiful, healthy son was born on July 10th 1996. I was working as a health visitor assistant before I went on maternity leave. In my last role, there was doing a huge meningitis awareness campaign with posters, giving out the little cards to people which highlighted the signs and symptoms of this deadly disease.
At the age of fifteen months, he suddenly became grizzly - didn't want cuddles, his milk or his favourite toy. His little body was burning up, but his hands and feet were freezing. It was after teatime, the GP surgery was closed, we didn't drive, so I rang for an emergency doctor to come out. My gut feeling told me something was very wrong with our son, Emil.
It took the emergency GP three hours to come out, and on arrival, he took only a cursory look at him, told us to put him in a tepid bath to cool him down. I suggested the possibility of it being bacterial meningitis, but he looked at me with disdain and said it definitely wasn't and called us over-anxious parents! He gave us a letter for our own GP and went. He was there for less than 10 minutes.
We did as he suggested, put Emil in a tepid bath, but the water was warmer when we took him out, so we wrapped him in a towel and ran down the road to the local taxi rank. The driver drove us very quickly to the local hospital and didn't charge us a penny. The hospital staff took us straight in as Emil was losing consciousness in the back of the taxi.
Once on the children's ward, they had difficulty maintaining his oxygen levels and I explained what had happened and what I thought. The doctor there opened the letter the emergency GP had given us, and he had written that it “Wasn't his meninges” and that we were “over-anxious parents”. I remember him shaking his head in disbelief at its content! The doctor did a lumbar puncture, which, as soon as I saw the cloudy liquid, confirmed my worst fears.
Three weeks later, Emil surprised everyone by trying to sit up, shouting “Tubby toast”. It seemed he had turned a corner. All subsequent blood tests confirmed that it had not affected his mobility, hearing, brain or sight. We had our little son back and lit a candle at the local Cathedral to give thanks for saving Emil's life.
Fast forward seven months to the 13th May 1998. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Emil was cutting a back tooth but was standing up, singing Postman Pat songs in his cot. A few minutes later, he stopped singing and we thought he had fallen asleep. But no, the meningitis had lain dormant in his brain and spine all that time, and when his temperature spiked due to teething. This had woken it up, and it killed our beautiful little boy at the age of only 22 months and 3 days. He had aspirated during a seizure, and it had burned the linings of his lungs. My futile attempts at CPR were useless. He had no gag reflex and the lovely paramedics came and tried in vain to resuscitate him.
He stayed at Martin House Children's Hospice until his funeral, and the following words came to me whilst I was there. It's almost like he wrote them for us, to tell us he was now okay.
The time had come, God called me home
but I didn't want to go
I wanted to stay with Postman Pat with Rupert Bear and Po
I wanted to kiss my mummy's face
And stroke my daddy's hair
I wanted to jump on my brother's bed
But there wasn't the time to spare
Love knew no limits for me down on Earth
From my family, my friends and my toys
There were earwigs and dancing and flowers and fun
There was music and giggles and noise
My time there among you was cut very short
But a lifetime of memories we made
And it moves me to see all my family and friends
Sat there crying and trying to be brave
For I never knew violence or hatred or pain
And my life was filled only with love
So don't grieve for me now I am gone from your world
For I'm here, in God's playground above
You'll all hear my voice in the breeze through the trees
So remember me only with joy
For though lent to you only
I'll live in your hearts
As your special, unique little boy.
Trust your instincts. Join meningitis.org. Join Meningitis Research Foundation Reach out to others. The vaccine that could have saved our son is now saving the lives of others.